The Mafia
Mafia faction
The Mafia is the hidden team in a mafia card game — the small side that knows exactly who its friends are. Each night the killers agree on a victim. Each day they sit among the innocent and act like them, steering the vote toward the wrong names. You win when you can outvote whoever is left. A few Mafia cards do more than kill: they block trials, silence voters, or make the cop's check lie. Those are tricks played on the City, not a third team. Open a card below to see what it does.
Playing with plain cards or index paper? Upgrade your table with The Final Witness Mafia Card Deck—featuring 28 custom illustrated cards, balanced setups, host scripts, and a zero-elimination mechanic that keeps every player alive and active until the end.
Assassin mafia role
Pick a player each night and kill them.
Assassin
Mafia
Mastermind mafia role
Acts as an assassin. If picked by the Policeman, the moderator lies about your faction.
Mastermind
Mafia
Lawyer mafia role
Pick a player each night; they are immune to trial the next day.
Lawyer
Mafia
Enforcer mafia role
Pick a player each night and remove their ability to speak or vote the next day.
Enforcer
Mafia
Terrorist mafia role
Once per game, pick a player; you both die.
Terrorist
Mafia
Mistress mafia role
Pick a player each night and cancel their ability for the night.
Mistress
Mafia · Expansion
Arsonist mafia role
Each night, pick a dead player and burn them; they cannot vote at the Final Witness.
Arsonist
Mafia · ExpansionHow to play mafia
Mafia is easier to play than it looks. Everyone gets a hidden card — most of the table is City, a hidden few are Mafia. At night the killers quietly pick a victim while a doctor tries to guess who needs saving and a cop digs for the truth. By day the survivors argue about what happened, put someone on trial, and vote. The City wins by finding every killer; the Mafia wins by surviving until they can win a vote. The walkthrough takes you through the whole game, from the deal to the last trial.
How to play mafiaStandard game setups
Your first game should be The Lamp and the Lancet — eight players and only three night wakes, so nobody gets lost. With a ninth chair the same deal becomes, naturally, The Ninth Chair. All twenty published deals, up to twenty-seven players, are on the setups page.
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The Lamp and the Lancet
8+ playersThe teaching deal. Eight chairs, one lamp, one lancet — and two knives that already know each other.
City: 1 Policeman, 1 Doctor, Citizens to fill Mafia: 2 Assassins
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The Ninth Chair
9+ playersThe classic table of nine. Two killers, a cop, a doctor — and the vote does the rest.
City: 1 Policeman, 1 Doctor, Citizens to fill Mafia: 2 Assassins